


And So Reality Can Be Worse

by BlueWeirdness



Series: Nightmares Can Be Reality [2]
Category: Eddsworld - All Media Types
Genre: Attempted Kidnapping, Important: Story up for adoption, No shipping, Not that it does him much good, Possessive Behavior, Possessive! Tord, Protective! Tom, he catches onto to tord's antics real quick, not heavily edited, not intended to reflected real people in any way, tom has to be the responsible one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27866249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueWeirdness/pseuds/BlueWeirdness
Summary: Note: Story is now up for adoption. More info inside.Things were never the same for Edd since Tord's betrayal, in more ways than one. Already barely scraping by, Edd and his friends must do their best to evade the former fourth member of their group.Through all this, Edd can't help but wonder:What does Tord want from them now?
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Series: Nightmares Can Be Reality [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1706227
Comments: 4
Kudos: 4





	And So Reality Can Be Worse

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome back! Apologies for the wait on this and thank you for your patience.
> 
> That being said, I'm not sure there's a nonawkward way to start this, so here goes: I have a few apologies/confessions/announcements to make.
> 
> First and most important: I'm putting this story up for adoption. I am so so so sorry. 
> 
> For a long time now, I've let myself become distracted by dozens of project ideas and it's hard to keep focused on one at any given time, whether fanfiction or original. Lately, I've been coming to terms with the fact that I'll never be able to fully realize every idea that comes into my head. So I've been trying to do a little "house-cleaning."
> 
> Which is why I've begun to compile my unused fanfiction ideas into a book on Wattpad that I'm calling Restless Fandom. I thought about posting them as prompts for an Ao3 collection, but I didn't know if it would fit in there? Like, do those prompts need to be super vague or what?
> 
> Not that anybody has to do them the way I'd do them, I just still want to communicate my thought-process for cathartic reasons.
> 
> Anyways, the point is that I'm starting to think it would be best to post this story idea there too, since after all this time, I still only have a very, very vague idea of where I wanted this to go. And honestly? It's been hard to even think about it lately.
> 
> But I thought the least I could do was show the next installment that I had planned to share. I'll post the link to my book of prompts at the end of the chapter where you'll find some of the details and snippets of what I had originally planned for this story.
> 
> Also, for the record, this isn't heavily edited, so sorry about that. 
> 
> Also also, I still didn't intend any shipping for this. The boys are protective of each other and Tord is possessive, but it's all meant to be in a friendship and/or brother kinda way.

The wanted posters were the rude awakening that Tom had warned him about for a while now. At first, Edd had wanted so much to pretend that the vicious figure they’d seen in the news wasn’t Tord. He wasn’t even calling himself Tord. Despite everything, Edd still wanted to believe that Tord was still the friend he’d known. But now, with wanted posters of himself and his friends lying on the table in front of him, he couldn’t deny it.

“Wanted,” the poster to his left said, bearing Tom’s image, “Dead or alive.” The poster on the far right was identical, with the exception that it bore Matt’s picture instead. He took his time to finally look to the middle to find his own smiling face, an expression that didn’t match him at all for the moment.

“Wanted: Alive.”

“I don’t like the look of this,” Tom said, looking over Edd’s shoulder.

“I know!” Matt gushed, “I can’t believe he didn’t have a better picture of me!” Edd could only just hear Tom elbow Matt, causing the latter to whine.

Although his senses soon returned, Edd didn’t even react when he felt a hand on his shoulder, “Come on,” Tom said, “We should leave.” The three of them had already long left their homes, when the raids began, but Edd knew that Tom was right, and that no place would ever be safe again for long.

The trio made their way out of the apartment as quietly as possible, not really having anything worth bringing with them. However, they soon heard a woman’s voice in another room and froze, “The three wanted men? Yes, they’re in the apartment next to mine. Yes, that’s what I said. All three of them.” Edd gulped, and Tom grabbed the other two and rushed them out of the building. 

They plunged outside where dawn hadn’t even broken yet, and tried to lose themselves in the alleyways of the town. Within minutes, they could hear sirens and men’s voices, and Edd struggled to keep up with his friends. The alleyways and streets passed by in a blur, and they finally reached the outskirts of the town. A forest faced them with a rundown road slicing through it.

“Did we lose them?” Matt said as Edd bent over to catch his breath.

“Oh, I hope so. I wanted it to be just the four of us one more time.” Edd felt a chill down his spine at the familiar voice. He was still gasping for breath as he turned around to see Tord casually leaning against a wall. His gaze settled on Edd, and he smiled. “Hey, Edd,” he said, “I’m sorry it took me so long to find you.” He stood up straight and began to walk toward them at a relaxed pace.

Edd jolted as he felt a rough tug on his arm that pulled him backward, but thankfully, it was only Tom. He scowled as he pushed Edd into a position right behind him, and faced Tord protectively. Edd looked at Tord from around Tom as well as he could from within his friend’s grasp. “How’d you find us?” Tom’s tone was bitter.

“Oh, that. Well, it’s amazing how predictably things work out when you print out wanted posters in a special, traceable ink. Particularly, when one of you can’t resist his own picture.” He pointed, and everyone looked at Matt, who heartbrokenly took his wanted poster out of his coat. “I’m sorry, guys! It was the first picture of me I’d seen in months!”  
Tord looked back to Tom, “But let’s be honest, Tom. That’s not really what you want to ask, is it?” Tom growled and his grip on Edd tightened, though he didn’t say anything.

“Tom?” Edd asked, his voice small.

Tord just smiled, stretching a hand out, “Now, be reasonable, Tom. Just release Edd to me, and you and Matt can go free for now.”

Tom only glared harder, “Not. A. Chance.” Edd could just barely hear his friend mutter one word under his breath as the pressure on Edd’s arm was slowly released. “Run.”

“Not without you,” he retorted.

“Ugh! You’re both slow and stupid!” Matt yelled, yanking both of them. With that, the three of them finally bolted.

They made it about twenty feet before Edd felt something bounce off against his back. He didn’t have time to think about it before crashing face-first into a row of iron bars. Judging from the familiar groans, his friends had met the same obstacle. The three of them found themselves trapped in identical cages.

“You didn’t really think I just invented makeshift chairs, did you?” Tord called, walking to them as slowly and deliberately as ever.

“Tord, let us go!” Edd called out, holding onto the bars. 

Tord strolled over to his former friend, who looked startled at first, but met Tord’s gaze steadily. “I’m not afraid of you, Tord.”

“Now, Edd. Why would you think I’d want you to be afraid of me?”

“You’re kidding, right?” Matt interjected loudly. Tord flashed him a glare, then pulled out a walkie-talkie. “I found them. Bring it around.” He lowered it, wrapping his other hand around a bar on Edd’s cage. “Not long now,” he said, smiling at each of them. He put the walkie-talkie away, and pulled out a copy of Edd’s wanted poster, “Seems like only yesterday that I was on one of these, eh, buddy? You see,” he glanced again at the wanted poster, “These may be new, but I’ve been looking for you three for a long time.”

“What? Why? We don’t have another giant robot for you to take!” Tom shouted.

“Oh, Tom, you really do think so poorly of me. The robot was nice. It would have really sped up my efforts, but you should know it wouldn’t have kept me down for long.”

“Then what do you want?” Edd asked.

“Let’s just say I’ve had a little change in perspective. There were a few things I was wrong about.”

“A few?” Tom raged.

“I’d rather not explain until we’ve reached our destination,” Tord smiled and turned away from them. 

A deafening hum came from behind Edd. He startled back, practically falling against the cage-bars. The largest truck he’d ever seen was backing up close enough to make him fear for his life.

“Um, that’s new!” Edd shouted, doubting that anyone could even hear him.

“And expensive!” Tord shouted back as he stalked around Edd’s cage to direct one of the uniformed soldiers that slid out of the truck nearest to Edd. He couldn’t hear them, but the pointing made his directions pretty obvious. Several more soldiers emerged from the back of the truck. As they made their way to the cages, to Edd’s surprise, they popped open. Tord was holding a small remote now, which was probably the perpetrator. (How many devices did he keep on him?)

“I’ll see you soon, boys. I have my own ride,” Tord called, walked away, as the trio was dragged along with the soldiers. Matt struggled the least, mostly concerned with avoiding any damaged to his face. Edd was vaguely aware that a larger group of soldiers had to take care of Tom. He thought that one Matt’s adversaries even had to leave him. Edd managed to land a punch or two, but he couldn’t break free against two of them. 

After a blur of fighting and kicking and scraping, the boys were thrown into the back of the prison-vehicle. Most of the soldiers got in behind them. It only just then occurred to Edd that they weren’t armed.

“Ugh, you guys sure don’t know when to quit,” a skinnier guard griped.

“Oh, come off it, Tony,” a red-headed female said, “They think that was all real.” 

Everything seemed to freeze around Edd and his friends. “What?”

Suddenly, the soldiers all began to break down. Into laughter. Edd couldn’t seem to figure out how to put his jaw back into place.

“I can’t believe it!” Tony laughed.

“It actually worked,” the red-head said. The others joined in.

“He just assumed we were the real thing because we stole a few uniforms.”

“Jamison owes me ten pounds.”

“I can’t believe we actually did it! We actually pulled one over on Led Reader!”

Finally, the laughter died down, and the first one, Tony, addressed the boys’ utterly confused stares, “Well, boys, I think I know where he wanted to take you, but I hope you don’t mind if we take you with us instead.”

**Author's Note:**

> Here's the link: https://www.wattpad.com/story/248627836-restless-fandom-fanfiction-prompts
> 
> Oh, and before I forget, here's some fanart I made for Nightmares and Worse Dreams a while back: https://www.instagram.com/p/CH3RdiCDE6O/
> 
> Also, there will be several unused Eddsworld ideas in addition to this one, if that's any consolation. (Not including Va-Cage-tion though. I still very much plan on finishing that one. Eventually. And There's A Catch was always meant to be a one-shot, for the record.)
> 
> Again, I'm sorry, and thank you so much for reading. Feel free to voice your thoughts in the comments or ask any questions.


End file.
